EPILOGUE: THE LAST RECORDING
Six months later.
Adrian Vale was in prison. The rooms between the rooms had been opened. The forgotten patients had been given names. Families. Funerals.
Thomas Reznik had testified. So had I. So had Dana. So had Ethan.
The world had remembered.
I stood in my old office. The lease was up. I was moving. Somewhere new. Somewhere without walls.
I packed the last box. Looked around the empty room.
And then I saw it.
The clock was still on the floor. Where I'd dropped it. I'd never picked it up.
I walked over. Knelt down.
Behind the clock, the hole was still there. Small. Dark.
I reached inside. My fingers brushed against something cold.
A tape recorder.
Not the one I'd found before. A different one. Older. Dustier.
I pressed play.
My voice. Younger. But not mine. Not the same.
"Daniel... if you are hearing this, it means you forgot again."
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
"It means Vale found us again. It means I had to erase you again."
"But listen. Listen carefully."
"There is still someone inside."
The recording stopped.
I sat on the floor. The recorder in my hands. My heart pounding.
Then the door opened.
Ethan stood in the doorway. He looked at me. Then at the wall.
"There is still someone inside," he said.
I looked at him. "Who?"
He walked over. Knelt beside me. Looked into the hole in the wall.
And then he looked at me.
"You."
May you like
The wall behind him began to close.
BLACK SCREEN.
